Talking it Through
by The Steppy One
Summary: In the aftermath of the battle Ron and Hermione have some talking to do.


**I've been a little bit blocked when it come to some of my other writings recently so I wrote this in attempt to clear the pipes as it were. Very, very vague references to 'Waiting In Line' but not essential that you read it. Let me know what you think!**

**Talking it Through**

'We haven't talked about-.'

She turned her head at the sudden words from Ron. She had been awake for a few minutes and was looking out of the window of the seventh year boys' dormitory. She was strangely calm but she didn't know how long it would last. She could feel emotion trying to push its way from her stomach up to her throat to constrict her breathing and then form tears in her eyes but she refused to let it overtake her. She knew once she started it would be the hardest thing in the world to stop.

'Um… I mean… I think we're supposed to talk… about… things…'

She held out her hand and he stood up from the bed and walked over to her. He looked at her hand and then took it as if he found the act uncomfortable.

'What's the matter?' she asked.

'Well… isn't it this that we need to talk about?'

She frowned but gave a half smile.

'You want to talk about… holding my hand?'

He smiled and grasped her hand a little tighter. She pulled him to her and he carefully wrapped his arm around her waist. She had bruised ribs and as much as she pretended they weren't hurting her, the pain relief she had taken had worn off. But she wouldn't complain, she was determined her bruises would be the least of other people's worries.

'Not holding your hand, specifically, but… us.'

They stood in silence for a few seconds, looking out over the grounds that, for the moment, were home to them once more.

'I thought…' she started uncertainly.

Despite everything that had happened in the past weeks, days, hours, an unusual squirm in her stomach started. She was scared but in a totally different way to the multitude of ways she had been terrified in the past year. For a second she envied that type of fear, purely because of the fact that she knew that terror, had somehow managed to control that fear and state of terror and worked out how to move through it. But this type of scared was unfamiliar, having felt it last over a year ago. It felt like a lifetime since.

'You thought, what?' Ron asked quietly.

'I thought that what happened earlier, the fact that we comforted each other and helped each other… that we'd, kind of… decided about… us.'

Ron sighed and her fear grew. She couldn't cope with rejection from Ron, and she couldn't help but read his behaviour as something gearing towards that. She stepped away from him, moving out of his arms and letting go of his hand. She leaned against the stone wall and stared resolutely out the window.

'Hermione…' Ron sighed and mirrored her position on the other side of the window. 'We've been through so much, I think we owe it to ourselves to say exactly how we feel and what we need from… not need, I mean… I just think now's the time to be honest with each other and say anything we want to say. Don't we owe that to each other?'

She shrugged. 'I suppose.' She couldn't help but let her disappointment come through in her tone.

'Hey, what's wrong?' he asked, reaching his hand out and stroking up and down her arm.

'I just… of all the things we've been through, I'm more terrified about what you're going to say in the next few minutes than anything else. That probably makes me selfish and shallow and a horrible person but I-'

He had stepped up to her and taken her face in his hand. He kissed her firmly and after a few seconds he pulled back and stared into her eyes. She felt like he could read every part of her soul with that stare.

'Nothing I say in the next few minutes is going to make you scared. Well, only scared in a good way… I hope. I promise you. I just… want to make sure it's a good scared.'

She smiled but her uncertainty showed through.

'We don't have a great track record for sorting things out, do we, though? One of us gets the wrong end of the stick or something happens to one of us that throws us into a place the other can't get to, or we have a psychotic wizard to help to destroy…'

'Then you see why I want us to say everything now and make sure there is only the right end of the stick, the right tree to be barking up and with no soul destroying objects to distract us…'

Images of her confrontation with the part of Voldemort's soul that taunted her as she forced it out of Hufflepuff's Cup invaded her mind and she shuddered. She looked at Ron and he was glaring at the floor.

'I thought I wasn't good enough for you,' he said quickly as if he was scared he wouldn't say it at all unless he got it out in that second. 'That's why… that's why I left. When I wore the locket-'

'Ron, you don't have to tell me about that, not if you don't want to.'

'I don't want to! But I _have_ to, because you need to know that I'll never leave you again! It kills me that I left you before, you have to know that once… okay this isn't going to paint me in a great light but I don't care…' She wanted to grab him and tell him to stop talking, to calm down and to stop getting worked up, but she needed to know why he had left and make sure that he wouldn't have whatever insecurity that led him to do just that, again. She said nothing and watched as he pulled his fingers through his hair and scrubbed his face with his hands. 'For a couple of weeks I was convinced that there was nothing I could do to get back to you. I knew by the time I had managed to get away from the Snatchers that you would have left where we were and that there was no way I would ever find you if you didn't want to be found. Logically I was right, your spells were always perfect, they weren't going to change just because I wasn't there.'

She nodded but she knew that she had considered it, just for a second. She had thought that maybe she could modify her spells so that Ron could find them, or at least see them should he by chance stumble upon where they had chosen to set up camp. But it was too risky, and there was a small part of her that felt too betrayed to let him back that easily.

'But it didn't change the fact that I was taking the easy way out. I was reminded… I was reminded that if the day came that it was all over, the war I mean, and that I hadn't at least tried to get back to you and help, that I would never be able to live with myself for that. I'd managed to convince myself that you did want me with you and that if you didn't kick me right back out the tent when I somehow made my way back to you, then I'd never leave your side. Ever.'

He chanced a look at her and she locked eyes with him for a second. She nodded.

'No, Hermione, I mean, ever.'

He stepped towards her and took her hands in his. He pulled her to him and he wrapped his arms around her and buried his face into her hair.

'I want to be by your side for every second that you want me there. I want… I want to say I love you and have you say it back.'

She let the words wash over her and when she realised he was clinging on to her as if for dear life she raised her arms and pressed every inch of herself possible to him.

'I…' she started her voice cracking with the emotion she had only barely been managing to keep under control. Tears stung her eyes and she buried her face into his shoulder. In managing to keep the noise from escaping her as she feared it would, the sobs made her muscles spasm and her hands turned into fists that grabbed the material of Ron's jumper tightly. She shook in his arms and while he didn't say anything, he stroked her hair and held her like he would stand there for eternity, supporting her.

She lost track of time. Eventually her thoughts returned from those of searching and fighting and torture to where she was and what she was doing. She tried to control her breathing and after a minute or so the only trace of her break down was the occasional hitch in her breathing and the wet patch on Ron's shoulder.

She pulled back but still kept her arms around him.

'I'm sorry-.'

'Don't you dare apologise.' His words were firm but not unkind.

'I know… I know you won't want to answer this… and I'm not sure I even want to know the answer to the question, but…'

He nodded and she saw his eyes were glistening with tears.

'Did you hear me? When you left and I… I ran after you. Did you hear me shouting?'

He closed his eyes and dropped his head to the floor. He nodded.

'When… when I was safe and miserable at Bill and Fleur's… I had nightmares that you screaming my name was the last thing I'd ever hear you say. I woke up one night and believed what I'd dreamed. For thirty seconds I thought you were dead and that you'd died thinking I didn't… I didn't care.' The tears escaped his eyes but his voice was still firm. 'I heard you, but I had it in my head that you weren't calling me back because you wanted me to stay.'

'What other reason could there have been?' she whispered, as she wiped a tear off his cheek.

He shrugged and sniffed.

'Dunno, three moving targets are better than two, six hands better than four, three wands better in battle even if the spells coming from one of them aren't better than the other two.'

Hurt, frustration and anger burned through her. Before she knew what she had done her hand had connected with his cheek. She had never slapped anyone before but she knew her touch hadn't been light. She was shocked at what she had just done.

'Don't you dare apologise,' Ron said as he turned his head back to face her. His hands were still clinging on to the material of her top and he pulled her towards him once more.

'When are you going to start believing that Harry is your best friend because you follow him regardless of what he does without question, because you make him laugh, because he can roll his eyes at me and you know exactly what he feels like, and because you treat him like a normal person instead of 'The Boy Who Lived' or 'The Chosen One'? And when are you going to start believing that despite the fact that you infuriate me beyond belief, despite the fact that you've hurt me by making fun of me, despite the fact that we bicker more than should be possible that I want you and I need you and I… I love you?'

He sniffed once more and she couldn't help but smile.

'If nothing else I say gets through your hair into the wonderful brain of yours, then please make sure that you know that I love you, too.' She smiled and he placed a kiss to her forehead. 'And… I know that now, the other stuff you said. I do. I know that Harry's my best friend because of the things that I have that are good despite all the other crap I come with.'

'Everyone's flawed, Ron! But most people work hard to not be defined by those flaws. You worked your way back to us and _that's_ what defines you and that's why we can't be without you, me or Harry.'

'I doubt Harry would kiss me in the heart of battle, though.'

She blushed and smiled.

'Nah, he's way too busy being the hero to do things like kissing.'

Ron nodded but his smile fell.

'We'll have to talk to him about… what he did. Won't we?'

Hermione nodded.

'If he wants to, then we have to be there for him. Whether he wants to shout, scream or just say the odd random sentence, we have to be there to listen. Not just us. I think Harry has to understand that he has a family and that we're all there for him, don't you think?'

Ron nodded and he looked certain in his actions.

'He won't want to talk for a while though, will he? He'll think it's not his place to put his thoughts and hurt on to other people so soon after… everything.'

'Sounds like Harry. But we'll be there ready and waiting when he wants to.'

Ron took a deep breath and sighed.

'There's something that I promised myself I'd say to you, if I found you and if we survived everything. I've been waiting for the right time to say it. After you'd been… tortured…'

He glanced at her, obviously worried at how she would react. She wouldn't react because she hadn't let herself think about it properly. At the minute it was like it had happened to someone else, that she had somehow seen someone else with bushy brown hair be hit by the Cruciatus Curse over and over again, but she knew that at some point the realisation would hit her that it was she who had endured unending, excruciating pain and she would relive those moments with unnerving clarity. She didn't know what would happen when she did, but knew that Ron would get her through it.

'…I thought that that was the right time, but it wasn't because everything was still so uncertain and we still had so much to get through. I'm glad I waited. '

Hermione nodded and waited for Ron to speak.

'We have a future. Something that two days ago we didn't know we'd have. I want you in my future, Hermione, permanently. I can't imagine what else we're going to have to face. Hopefully nothing more than normal people have to deal with, wars notwithstanding of course, but I want to face it all with you.'

Tears threatened to overwhelm her again, but she refused to cry at this. This would be the first thing she solely smiled about in the aftermath of the war.

'If that's what you want, of course.'

'I want that more than anything. You have a future, I have a future and _we_ have a future. Together. But before we have to be grown up and think about futures and coping with what's out there,' she tilted her head towards the window, 'can I just be a teenager for a minute?'

Ron frowned and smiled, obviously confused.

'Um… yeah…'

'Good.'

She took his face in her hands and kissed him. She sucked hard on his bottom lip and moved her hand to his back to pull him against her. He responded and grabbed a handful of her hair and placed his hand in the small of her back. She pushed her tongue at his lips and he parted them. Their tongues met and inexpertly explored each other, gently pushing and submitting in turn. She wrapped her leg around his and he moaned into her mouth.

They pulled apart and she was surprised at how out of breath she was.

'If it causes you to do that, please be a normal teenager as often as you like!'

She grinned and buried her face in his chest, embarrassed and blushing.

'How long do you reckon we can get away with being teenagers before we have to deal with the hurt and pain at the bottom of this tower?' he asked.

'I don't know, but one day, whether it's a few days or weeks, we'll not have to feel guilty about being normal. That's what we fought for, isn't it?'

He nodded.

'At the minute I have no idea what normal will be?'

'Do you want to work it out together?' she asked taking his hands in hers.

He smiled and her heart soared. She had no idea how she felt, but for the minute, happiness was overtaking everything else she was feeling and for the minute, that's exactly what she needed.

'Always.'


End file.
